Weldex picks Nigg Bay for Scotland’s first ‘crane school’

PETER RANSCOMBE

CRAWLER crane hire specialist Weldex is to open Scotland’s only training school for crane drivers in the New Year as the firm celebrates its busiest period in Scotland for a decade.

The Inverness-based firm has chosen the resurgent Nigg energy park in Easter Ross for the training school, as the oil rig yard continues to diversify into the renewable energy market.

Weldex chairman Doug McGilvray said: “We feared a difficult year on completion of our Olympics contracts with 34 cranes out of our total of 120 being involved simultaneously at Games construction sites. But to our surprise the market in Scotland has more than filled the gap with contracts in Orkney, Shetland, Dounreay, Nigg and the new Forth road crossing.

“This is very much against the trend of the past decade, when the bulk of our activity was in England or overseas.”

The company – which employs 130 people and turns over about £30 million a year – has also been awarded a contract for Dong Energy’s West of Duddon wind farm off the coast of Northern Ireland.